A pinkalicious princess birthday

We celebrated Elise's birthday last Saturday. I was in denial the entire day that my baby is now 3. It seems a little unfair that when I was little, time seemed to drag and now that I'm older and want more time it's going by in a blur!

In the morning, we let Elise open a couple of the presents my parents sent. She was very excited to get this Disney Princess figurine and map set (she coveted her cousin McKinna's at Christmas).

She also loved this sweater and pants outfit Grandma & Grandpa Love sent her. Pink is one of her very, very favorite colors (much to the dismay of her mother). Haha!

Elise spent the entire afternoon playing with her Princess map. She even let Alex play a little.

Later, Jon's family came over for our little family birthday party. This picture was taken mid-gasp as she saw the dress-up jewelry Ben & Whitney gave her.

Sherrie & David gave her an awesome coloring book with pictures of herself and her family just like Alex's. They also gave her the book Goldilicious! to go with the Pinkalicious! and Purplicious! books they gave her for Christmas. She asks me to read them every day. ;)

A super-cool (pink!) vest from Jon's Aunt Marcia. She loved the heart detailing made out of rhinestones!

Jacob & Kristie gave Elise a ballerina Snow White doll. The best part of it is, which I'm really more excited about than anyone else...it's because I'm a mom, that the ballet shoes are painted on! No stepping on doll shoes in the middle of the night! Hooray!

She was very excited about the My Little Pony playhouse my parents sent. She was so excited, she giggled and put her hands to her face, and then began pushing the buttons and clapping her hands. As you can see, Jon was very excited about it, too!

Our gift to Elise this year was a Belle doll (she's been into Beauty & the Beast for about the last 6 months).

After presents were done, we brought out her Princess cake, which she specifically requested 3 months ago ("I want a Princess cake...with a pink dress."). This wasn't the most difficult cake I've ever done, but it came in at a close second: 2 different sized bundt cakes stacked on top of each other, a filler between the cake and the doll (I used ballooned tin foil), and a naked doll to dress! For anyone who's curious...no, it's not easy to put a butter cream frosting bodice on a naked plastic doll. It took me 2 hours just to frost her (that doesn't include making the frosting). But Elise was so excited about it that it made all that work totally worth it.

Close-up of the infamous Princess cake...

After our family left, Elise begged us to break into the dress up jewelry and wanted to put it on and take it off and put it on and take it off. I managed to get this snap-shot of her between "dressings."

Happy birthday, Sis!